


golden time

by suougibma



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Gore, Dark, M/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28664187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suougibma/pseuds/suougibma
Summary: Johnny’s not quite sure whether he should be relieved or not now that he’s finally found out what was causing the severe pain on his back and neck......because it looked so real to be fake.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	golden time

Sleep is a such a luxury for someone as Johnny who has a fucked up schedule, which effectively ruins his sleeping pattern as much he refuses to believe.

To his commissioner is who he wants to blame it all. For assigning him in a different department—in one of the _busiest_ facets of Chicago Police Department.

Originally, what he was aiming to achieve was to become a part of the Airport Police Department, however, things unexpectedly made a huge turn for him. Somewhere not as close as to what he had imagined.

Expect the unexpected as they say. Johnny thinks that this is where fate leads him to. The place where time is the most precious of them all.

Time for Johnny is a weird concept on most days. Sometimes, he thinks it is not real—sending him into a loop of existential crisis. But as he was sent to work under a new department, Johnny was starting to have a grasp on what time really is. It might have been late for some, but to Johnny, he thinks it’s just about the right time.

Golden Time Unit was far from what he had imagined at first. Not that he underestimated their line of job for they never go on the run unlike the detectives whose job is to investigate in every crime scene, or that they have yet to become an established unit. It was just, there was no room at all for him to know what goes on with said unit. Especially that GTU was only formed a month ago. It really was not one from his interests.

To work under the 911 call center with CPD had a bigger picture compared to what he had seen before, quite unimaginable if he was to describe the experience.

 _We were the first people to know before someone reaches out,_ he remembers vividly what their head voice profiler, Manager Moon, once said when he seemed to disapprove the changes in his position during the interview.

There were two of them who were being recruited at that time, Officer Kang being the other cop alongside with him that day who had given the same response as he did.

Manager Moon had expressed his eagerness to persuade Johnny, whatever it takes, because Golden Time Unit needed someone as intelligent as Johnny on the line. With his experience of professional hacking, too, is what had urged the head of the unit to recruit him on the team. In addition to that, he speaks six languages fluently. _Six_ and there’s only a few that Manager Moon has a knowledge of with such skill. And most importantly, with callers who does not only speaks in English, Johnny definitely fits well in the position.

It didn’t take long for Johnny to accept the invitation—which delighted Manager Moon more than he should have—thinking it would not be too bad of an idea to expand his experience while working with other units. What he had not expected, however, was the _level_ of work they have to successfully perform, for they are not just taking simple calls but a literal call for help. A matter of life and death.

Golden Time Unit is obviously an essential facet of the Chicago Police Department, and Johnny’s grateful to have become a part of it—to become one of its pioneer members. Manager Moon really did a spectacular job in leading his team, proving to the commissioner the unit’s worth.

And as he continuously work with said unit, it also became quite apparent for his energy to be drained in most days. It’s inevitable, though, because as a cop, he can never complain when his job is to protect any civilian who’s in danger.

But things had drastically changed rather quickly for Johnny these days, that he finds it difficult to catch some good sleep each night despite of the amount of exhaustion hugging his body after a long day at work, which would usually put him to sleep as soon as he plops his body on the bed.

Sleeping after a tiresome day should be easier by now, and that’s what bothers Johnny recently since he hasn’t gotten any sleep from the past few days.

Most of the time, he would wake up the next morning and still feel the heaviness of his lids and body as if he was awake the whole fucking night.

Sleep was supposedly the tool to replenish his energy overnight, but these days, it miserably fails at doing its job.

But Johnny chooses to believe that this is just one of the effects of sitting almost the entire time of his shift, taking calls from victims, or tracking and legally hacking different IP addresses and softwares in some cases.

Johnny knew he needed to see a doctor for his back and neck pain, but he’s always been a stubborn one who persuades himself that he’s okay most of the time when in reality he’s not. It’s not healthy, even his colleagues reprimands him for not listening.

Especially when the guy he’s been dating for the past four months is an actual doctor.

“Opt for a check-up or I’ll ban you from seeing my tank of fish?” Taeyong, the doctor he’s been dating, once said some time last week during a late night phonecall.

As much as he wanted to be threatened, Johnny was more than enamoured than to believe Taeyong who does treat him like a child sometimes. Well, he can’t really blame him, since he acts like one when he wishes to. _You are a manchild, mister!_ Taeyong’s words rings at the back of his head (from when he whined after Taeyong didn’t kiss him twice after he walked him home).

He knew Taeyong would sulk even more if he ever say no, so he agrees, telling the other that _yes, I will see a doctor for you._

Taeyong responds with, “do it for yourself, big guy, not for me.”

And as simple as that, just by hearing that term of endearment Taeyong uses to him, he had long forgotten about the check-up and smiled like an idiot.

He really is an idiot for the one and only Lee Taeyong.

—

True to his words, Johnny did see a neurologist with Taeyong’s referral after two days from their late night phonecall.

He was informed that the pain from his back and neck were just a normal muscle tension caused by his poor posture during work. There was no infection from a virus that was detected to cause the pain and that relieved not only him but Taeyong as well.

“Prevention is the key, big guy.” Taeyong tells him after they settled themselves in the hospital’s cafeteria. “I’m glad it was nothing serious.”

Johnny nods, reaching Taeyong’s hand at the top of the table and smiles. “Thank you for threatening me or else I’m still cooped up in my sheets right now.”

Taeyong snorts. “You’re welcome,” then he squeezes Johnny’s much larger hand on his, “how was your sleep last night, though, was it any better?”

“There hasn’t been any changes so far,” Johnny replies, sighing, “do you have a good sleep advice for me?”

Taeyong hums as he mulls over a thought, rummaging through his mind to find a better option for Johnny to do since a glass of warm milk or an exercise before bed no longer works. And when he had thought of a particular idea inside his head, he squeezes Johnny’s hand again to get his attention back to him.

“I’m not sure if this is a good idea,” he starts and Johnny focuses himself to Taeyong with full intent, “but...how about you set up a camera to record and see what might be causing the pain? You know, like poor sleeping postures?”

It wasn’t an entirely bad idea, Johnny thinks. In fact, it was quite brilliant.

When he was younger, his mother would tell him how weird his postures were while sleeping that he should never complain again about how stiff his neck would be on the next day. For the most part, he didn’t bring himself to be curious on how he actually positions himself to sleep, thinking it was just one of his bad habits.

Maybe it really is just the bad posture, and it won’t harm anyone at all if he’ll choose to record himself while asleep.

So later that night, he grabbed one of his old cameras—when he was still so into photography several years back—and sets it on a tripod near the edge of his bed.

Johnny feels weird at first for he’s never done this before because he didn’t have any reason to do so. But now that he does, maybe this isn’t so bad after all.

After his short phonecall with Taeyong, he finally dives into slumber but not until he presses the shutter of the camera to start recording.

—

The next morning, what Johnny did after fluttering his eyes open was to groan.

It was impossible not to by the way the pain on his neck had never left—still there, attaching itself on his muscles like a leech.

Johnny heaves a deep sigh. The neurologist had told him that the pain would naturally ease up in less than a week, and that’s what he chooses to cling onto like a lifeline.

 _A stubborn beanstalk,_ his consciousness tells him so and he could imagine it glaring back at him.

Johnny wanted to grow out of that bad habit as much as his consciousness does, but as soon as he saw the red dot from his camera blinking at him, the thought immediately throws itself out of the window on its own accord.

Right, he almost forgot about the idea of recording himself while asleep.

He carries himself out of bed to finally press the shutter again to stop the recording, feeling sorry just a tad bit for his beloved camera by leaving it running for several hours.

The clock reads seven fifteen once he checked the time and Johnny deems it necessary to leave the camera first and go back to it after his shift later, for he needed to prepare for work now.

And just like from any other day, Johnny moves on by his usual routine. Of course, never leaving the part where he sends Taeyong a good luck message for his day at work.

Taeyong would usually send him a response full of heart emojis. To Johnny, it’s enough to make his day.

—

“Officer Suh,” a whisper from his left disturbs his focus on his research about the serial murders of the son of the Chicago Express’ president, Eder Olsen, that was connected to the current case the unit is handling, “are you alright?”

“Except the back and neck pain, I’m alright, Officer Wong.” Johnny responds without batting an eye to glance at his colleague, focused on the article he was drowning himself into.

Officer Wong sighs, suddenly putting a halt on his task. “It’s best not to attach yourself too much on these cases. I know you too well not to doubt that you work even during your days off.”

“I know my dude.” Johnny says rather loudly, causing his colleague to kick him against his leg to get back to his senses. Officer Nakamoto on his right just laughs at them.

The pain from his colleague slash close friend’s kick had effectively tore his attention into two, allowing him to finally look at his left. Johnny nursed his aching leg while Officer Wong glares at him.

“Your professionalism is hanging low by a thread, Officer Suh.”

Johnny snorts, leaving his leg to opt for a slouching position on his swivel chair, giving his lower back a loud crack. Officer Wong winces, sighing once more.

“I understand, _Officer Wong._ ” Johnny emphasizes, and Officer Wong nothing but makes a face to his sarcasm.

“You look a lot older from yesterday,” anyone would feel offended by Officer Wong’s words but never Johnny, instead, he agrees, “you and Doctor Lee doesn’t even look like you share the same age.”

Johnny scoffs, lightly shaking his head—which he thinks is a stupid idea because it only made his neck be in pain even more from his bad slouching position. He then straightens his sitting position and says, “talking about the guy I’ve been dating during working hours and professionalism does not correlate, _Officer Wong._ ”

His colleague rolls his eyes and reaches his arms close to Johnny to flip him off. “I am only stating some facts.”

“Sure,” Johnny shrugs, “does that mean I can talk about Professor Lee here?”

Officer Wong sighs again, wondering how many times he had to express his exhaustion in dealing with his childish colleague today. “We are stopping here, Suh, do not drag my boyfriend here.”

“But you starte—”

Johnny’s words got drowned in the loud noise of the familiar alarm he’s become accustomed to hearing now, bringing him and Officer Wong’s attention solely on Director Moon’s voice.

“Code Zero, a kidnapping has occured. The abductor has weapons and is possibly a murder suspect. The victim is in an old building two miles radius from 1800 N. Clybourn. Nearby patrols are needed for back-up for Sergeant Byun’s patrol team as dispatched by Golden Time Unit.”

And with that, the whole unit had buckled themselves up on their seats to focus on what’s awaiting for them from the other end of the line.

—

It took Johnny several days, after the kidnapping case had been solved, to be reminded of his self-recording a few days back.

He didn’t have much energy to bring himself to check the video after he took a shower, wanting to study more of the article about the Olsen Serial Murders, only if he wasn’t reminded of Lucas’—Officer Wong—words a few days ago, _it’s best not to attach yourself too much on these cases._

That’s one of his problems, Johnny thinks. He reads too much and keeps wanting to gain more knowledge about so many things he think could help several cases unsolved around the city.

Lucas is right and Johnny hates it.

He hates that Lucas _always_ has to be right and that he catches himself following what his friend tells him to do.

To rest and to stop thinking about the cases.

Not that it is a bad idea, Johnny is just quite afraid of being stagnant—which obviously is an exaggeration for Lucas or for an average person, but still. Johnny is always used to keeping himself busy every single day. And well, yes. That really _is_ a problem.

But dedicating this time for a no-studying-of-cases kind of night is perhaps what he badly needed right now. The pain on his neck is too much that it could simply distract him from reading on some murder related articles.

So he follows the advice of a friend, settling himself on bed accompanied with the camera he used to record himself while he slept.

Johnny turns on the device and presses play to watch the video.

At first it was just him, you know, _sleeping,_ with nothing suspicious at all to worry about.

There have been some moments when he fast forwarded the video, where he winced at a specific position when it caught his attention—with his head extremely bent on the side below the pillow and his whole body straight, stiff and uncomfortable.

Johnny heaves a deep sigh, disappointed that his body would go far to a point where his muscles must suffer the next morning so badly.

This is it, Johnny thought to himself, convinced that that is already a clear evident of the constant neck and back pain of his for a week now.

Well, that’s what he thought.

He was about to disregard the three remaining hours from the recording before something suspicious—quite ambiguous—occured in the video, immediately pulling his attention all together.

Johnny eagerly tunes in his ears on the sounds coming from the device. The sound of faint rummaging somewhere along the hallway connected to his bedroom is what he suspects he is sensing. He decided to wait for a few minutes, and as dull moments continued to display on the video, Johnny then clicked on a button to fast forward again.

Fifteen minutes were added on the watched part now when Johnny pressed play again.

It was quite indiscernible at first, but once he made out of the figure he’s seeing, there he saw a man covered with black clothing from head to toe who was much taller and bigger than him in size standing beside his bed, unmoving and unfazed as if he’s carefully thinking about his next move.

He was staring...and he kept doing it so while Johnny slept like a fucking log. That, too, is a very concerning problem of Johnny. When he sleeps, he sleeps as if he’s hibernating.

It took the mysterious man several minutes to finally make a move, and that _move_ being as going on top of Johnny, straddling him and then grabs a small knife from his back pocket, using it to slit Johnny’s throat open, leaving him drowning in his own blood. It happened too fast that Johnny had nothing left to do but to die in his sleep. He saw how he didn’t even flinch when the man cut through his skin.

Johnny gulps, eyes growing wider like saucers each passing second as he continued to watch the video.

This cannot be it, was what he chose to say now, because this obviously cannot be it.

Everything that had happened in the video was too real to be fake.

The video is still running and the man from the video has now jumped off of the bed, giving Johnny’s neck another deep slice just to be sure that he’s dead—slowly but surely, as if the man was enjoying every second the knife is cutting the skin on his neck.

Johnny could feel his heart pounding extremely loud against his chest. Small droplets of sweat are dotting on his forehead, feeling his blood running cold at the sight of himself being _murdered_ in his own house by an intruder and somewhat mysterious kind of man while he was nothing but helpless.

He was fucking murdered several days ago and he didn’t know? He was supposed to be dead but he’s alive and kicking?

His back and neck were aching for several days because he was fucking _murdered_? Who would even believe that? Not even Johnny himself would believe what he had just watched. It obviously cannot be real in any way.

Even more so when he had clearly seen how the man dragged his lifeless body somewhere he had no recollection of, and that he also saw himself from the video after a couple of minutes how he nonchalantly went back to his room and sleep like nothing— _nothing_ at all—terrible had happened.

Everything was perfectly caught on the video and there wasn’t even a single thing that was left on the floor or his bed for him to grow suspicious of and declare that someone had illegally breached his home the moment he woke up after the incident.

From the timeline of the recording, an hour remains before it was supposed to end but Johnny couldn’t find the courage to watch the whole thing for his head was wrapped with dizziness and his heart is still pounding sporadically on his chest.

Red lights flashes at the back of his head and the familiar loud ringing of the code zero’s alarm suddenly rings in his ears as he continued to calm himself—that this is not real. This is just a nightmare that felt so real.

But then his phone rings, reverberating within the silent space of his room, effectively startling his whole trembling body and soul.

Johnny immediately shuts the camera off once he saw the name of the caller— _Taeyongie._ He breathes in and out, bringing the beating of his heart back to its normal rhythm.

It is the phonecall from one of their routines.

They had both agreed to have _even_ just a short phonecall during the night or whenever they find the time to ask how their days went. It’s sweet, really. They always make time to remind themselves how important they are to each other, even if they have yet to put an official label on their relationship.

“Hey, big guy.” Taeyong says from the other line, and Johnny’s grateful to hear his voice after what he had witnessed. Taeyong’s calm and soft voice always keeps his heart at bay.

Johnny smiles, finding comfort on the other’s sweet voice. “Hi, little bean.”

“How have you been? I also almost forgot to ask about the video recording. Did you try it? How did it go?”

Johnny gnawed at his bottom lip upon hearing the questions from Taeyong. He obviously cannot just tell him what he had seen right there and then. He’s not even sure if he would ever choose to say it to Taeyong. So he covered his words with lies.

“Ah, yes,” he lightly chuckles, “my sleeping positions were hella weird. I’m blaming it all to that.”

Johnny hears Taeyong sharing a laughter with him and a hum of acknowledgement. Taeyong sighs too and says, “you really need to take care of yourself, Suh.”

The serious tone from Taeyong’s voice this time is enough for Johnny to understand that Taeyong meant it well. That he wants nothing but Johnny to be out of pain as soon as possible. He really is the sweetest.

“Although I cannot guarantee you that, I will try my best, Yong.”

Johnny’s not sure why, but he can imagine Taeyong sporting a pout right this moment.

Taeyong sighs. “Okay. Let’s skip that and tell me how your day went instead.”

As much as he wanted to reach out to Taeyong and tell him what really happened in the video, he didn’t have the heart to do so.

Not now...or maybe, ever.

**Author's Note:**

> — this was loosely inspired by the korean series: voice  
> — prompt was from writing prompts on tumblr  
> — _golden time unit_ was only made for fictional purposes. it is not a real facet of any police department as per _voice_ ’s writer. it was stated during the special episode that they had partly put the show together to advocate such unit.  
> — but the _golden time_ term does exist, referring to the critical time after any occurence or incident.  
> — code zero: the radio call issued by officers who need urgent assistance, often when they are under attack or their lives are in danger.  
> — mark is lucas’ boyfriend, a music professor who he had met two years ago through a mutual friend, lee donghyuck.  
> — johnny and lucas have known each other even before they attended the police academy, but were only reunited when manager moon recruited them to work under the golden time unit.  
> — taeyong is a surgeon here and the neurologist he refered to johnny was doyoung.
> 
> thank you so much for reading!


End file.
